California elections & bilingual ed

[Enrique Diaz-Alvarez]

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> 
> At 12:50 PM 6/4/98 -0400, Enrique Diaz-Alvarez wrote:
> >My guess is that it may be favored by Hispanics, especially since they
> >seem to have rejected the proposition overwhelmingly (2-1 margin). The
> >measure was essentially passed by whites, against the opposition of the
> >Hispanic vote, with blacks split 50-50. Much the same as 187. It would
> >be interesting to find out what the vote was among Spanish-speaking
> >parents with school-age children, who are, after all, the only ones that
> >will be affected by the measure.
> 
> What is the source of your stats?
> 

CNN/LA Times exit poll, in today's NYT, page A25. In favor, 67% of
whites, 57% of Asians, 48% of blacks, 37% of Hispanics. I was surprised,
since one of the main arguments of the non-Spanish-speaking-millionaires
who put in on the ballot is that Hispanics themselves favored doing away
with BE, so they were actually doing them a favor.


> From what I read in The Nation's article I cited before, Hispanics tended
> to favor Prop. 227  because they were disappointed by the quality of the
> existing bilingual ed.  To my recollection, the only supporters were those
> who benfitted from these programs in terms of employment opportunity.
> Unfortunately, the text of the article is not available on The Nation's web
> site, you have to check a hard copy.
> 

Well, there seem to have been a few more than that, according to the
exit polls. Maybe it wasn't all that bad (I personally have no
experience with BE in the US).


> 
> BTW, does anyone know if that opportunistic swine Wilson openly endorsed
> Prop. 227 or chose to stay away from the issue?
> 

All four candidates for governor opposed it. I don't know about Wilson,
though.


> Regards,
> 
> WS

-- 
Enrique Diaz-Alvarez            Office # (607) 255 5034	
Electrical Engineering          Home #   (607) 758 8962
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Cornell University              mailto:enrique at ee.cornell.edu
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